Imagine yourself in a social situation; maybe at a party surrounded by strangers or possibly even having to give a speech in front of a large group of your peers. Now imagine your body completely failing you, your mouth grows dry, your limbs grow weak and shaky, and you can't help but feel as if everyone around you is silently judging you. This is what it feels like to live with social anxiety. "Social anxiety is the fear of interaction with other people that brings on self-consciousness, feelings of being negatively judged and evaluated, and, as a result, leads to avoidance." (Richards, 1). Upon the quest that is this paper, I will dive into the deeply complex cavern that is social anxiety to not just for the purposes of research but also, …show more content…
Before I get too far into this paper, I want to make it known that I will sometimes refer to social anxiety disorder as SAD. One of the big questions that is the driving force behind this whole paper is if I have social anxiety. I am deeply and passionately interested to see if I suffer from social anxiety because I have long always thought that I may have some sort of social skills issue. Another question that I want to seek answers to is how a person becomes diagnosed with social anxiety. I think this aspect is important because it is virtually the first step in this process to seeing if I have social anxiety. In addition to the question of diagnosis, I also want to know how a person copes with social anxiety. I think this is of the utmost importance because if I were to find out I have social anxiety, I would most definitely want to figure out what the most effective ways of dealing with, and overcoming social anxiety are. Another aspect of social anxiety that I am interested in is the effects. I want to research this question because it would be of high importance to know and understand these sorts of manifestations when they may come about in my own life. All of these questions and more are the things that I will strive to better understand throughout the journey of this